


OBA: Outtakes and One Shots

by Kat2107



Series: Dreamspinners [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Outtakes, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2018-11-10 06:22:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11121657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat2107/pseuds/Kat2107
Summary: Outtakes, slices of life and prompt fills for One Bullet Awayaka: Shit that happens





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This scene belongs somewhere in Chapter 10 of OBA. I love Eliza very much and wanted to show what she and Goody had been conspiring but it just didn't fit into the main fic.  
> So... here we go. 
> 
> Chapter warnings: Sam is a shitty husband.

“I love you, Sam Chisolm. You are a goddamn idiot and the Lord forgive me for taking his name in vain, but I have loved you since I was 19 and I never stopped.” Elaine’s skin under his hands had been warm and soft and he had laughed a kiss into it. 

“You deserve better.” 

“I damn well do, we both know that but what we want is not always what we deserve. And what I want is a man in my bed who can make me feel like a woman loved and desired whenever he is in that bed. I do not need a warm body under my blanket every night. I need a man who can leave his demons behind on the occasions he is in it.” At that she had laughed. “You are a sorry as husband, Sam, but you are still and always will be an amazing lover and the only man whose smile makes this girl’s heart flutter.”

His hands on her hips had felt all to right, all too easy to undo all the decisions they both had made to protect each other and what had been left of their family, the only family he still had. 

“Eliza… I can’t stop. I tried.” In the darkness of their former bedroom - now her’s - honesty came easy to him. Tomorrow he would fly back to California and his ragtag team, his traumatized best friend and his assassin lover, his protegé who still seemed so very innocent, Faraday, too much trouble on two legs and Vasquez, desperate and skillful, wounded in ways that had broken lesser men but blessed him with the ultimate ability to survive. 

Once there, Eliza, Alex, Tommy, would fade into the background fabric of his life once more, a warm touch on his heart but one they’d forever have to share with the things that had shaped him long in the past.

“Even if we take down Bogue… there will always be another Bogue, another monster to hunt.”

“I know that, Sam. I know what made you what you are, knew that even when I married you although I didn’t understand it yet.” 

Brushing his hand through her hair where she rested against his chest, Sam tried to find the words that could express how much he wished for something else. No matter what, any words had to be insufficient. “It shouldn’t be this way…”

She pushed up onto her elbows above him and looked down, a goddess in the golden glow of the streetlamp. “We didn’t choose this world, Sam…”

“..we can only choose how to face it,” he completed and rose onto his elbows for a kiss. “I missed you.”

“Hrm…” Her somber tone slipped into playfulness and in the soft light through the window her smile turned into a smirk. “I may have, too. A little. Tried to be a strong woman that need no man, but… it got boring fast.” Her head dipped, brushed his lips. 

“You don’t.” Sam Chisolm laughed like he rarely laughed outside her sphere. Low and soft, his ragged scar edges softened by her sharp wit. “Need a man, I mean. You got a great job, two almost grown kids who turned out great, probably no thanks to me.”

“How about a hot, ilicit affair then, Mr. Chisolm? Smoking law enforcement officer and beautiful journalist? Hrm? You can tell me all how about you hunt bad boys when we meet in secrecy.” Her hips moved over his with the knowledge of years. 

One of the things he had always loved most was the way she could waggle her brows and make him laugh, make him want to make her laugh with all her body and heart. How her dreams were beautiful flowers and sunshine and not dust and blood and a murderer riding into town across the street. 

But maybe, once they managed to take down Bogue, he could try again. Ask what they wanted, he and she both, and find the way to get it. 

The fight ahead and not the one behind or what was it that Goody had said?

First one ahead was Bogue. But then…

Sam arched into her movement with a low moan. 

But then...

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a bit of a bad day yesterday thanks to residue medication side effects, too little sleep, and the weather, and I needed some fluff and some light h/c.  
> I also needed something I could dedicate to Hazel Athena who never fails to do everything in her power to cheer me up. And who always ALWAYS succeeds.

He shot up from the bed, laughter ringing in his ears with the crackle of electricity, the dry desert heat, and screams. Fucking screams.

Vasquez ground his teeth together and swallowed the sound already on his tongue. Blessed cool surrounded him, the soft hum of an AC, freshly starched sheets and, outside the window, the skyline of London.

It rained.

Before he could sit up fully or lay back down, a heavy arm snuck around his waist, the finger brushing over his skin with a calm touch.

“Bad dream?” a sleep addled voice murmured where Josh’s face remained half pressed into his pillow, eyes closed, his bed head pointing in every which direction.

Vasquez let himself drop back onto his elbows at least and allowed himself a deep breath.

“Yeah.”

He didn’t dream, per se. The Somnacin stole that from them. But that had yet to prevent the night terrors from jolting him awake, rarely as they did.

Sam had more or less forced him to talk about it and go through an evaluation process to determine whether he was fit for any kind of duty. Vasquez had agreed easily out of pure spite and the intense wish to prove he was fine.

They had done their talks and their observations, went under and run him through the stressors and come back honestly impressed.

Worryingly fine, Sam had called it as if he expected Vasquez to still lose his head. “It’s not like you don’t have any coping mechanisms, but you got almost all of them under control.

“I got all of them under control, Sam,” Vasquez had retorted and accepted the man’s friendly clasp on his shoulder with a pat of his own.

“Faraday told us about the ‘GTFO bag’”

“And? I can live without it.”

“But it stresses you.” Sam had smiled. “This is no judgment, Vasquez. You are amazingly well adjusted for a man who went through what you went through. As your boss, I just need to know your triggers and make sure to help you deal with them if they come up.”

“What are yours?” Vasquez had asked in return and smirked, not without satisfaction at the Extractor’s surprise. “As your pointman and the person responsible for your safety, don’t you think, I should know yours, too?”

Among all the reasons why Vasquez respected the man, the fact that he never failed to step up ranked pretty high. That was the main reason he had agreed to contact Sam whenever he hit something that he couldn’t deal with. The other was the fact that that had yet to happen.

It got harder some dates, though. Anniversaries. Birthdays. Days of death…

“Ya wanna talk ‘bout it?” Josh murmured and curled closer, his thumb drawing small circles over the scar on Vasquez side.

When Vasquez shook his head - because he really didn’t want to draw the pictures into a world where he had survived the memories already - Faraday hummed thoughtfully and gently tugged Vasquez back down.

“You wanna try and go back to sleep?”

Vasquez let his head drop back onto the pillow with a soft sigh and turned his head to the right, searching for the bright eyes he knew he’d find there. He shrugged.

Faraday grinned and leaned closer until their lips almost touched.

“I can fuck you back to sleep, too…?” He suggested and to his own surprise, Vasquez snorted a laugh.

“You are incorrigible, Guero! Madre Díos, but you are.”

“Yeah.” Faraday chuckled softly and drew Vasquez against his solid body until he could comfortably close his arms around his boyfriend’s shoulders. “Maybe. But I’m also good at distractions.”

He smelled of whiskey, of cigarette smoke and the high-end bar where he had spent the previous evening stalking his mark. He also smelled of warm sweat and the expensive soap that Vasquez bought. He smelled like the pillow Vasquez buried his face in whenever Faraday took one of his timeouts and vanished for days, sometimes weeks at a time.

Vasquez raised his head, pushing up with a forearm on Faraday’s chest.

“Carlos died today. Six years ago and it’s…”

“Hard?”

“I keep thinking that I could’ve done something differently.” Vasquez shrugged and looked down on the face of a man who had never once said anything about love, except in jest, but who wore it so openly on his features it might just as well be tattooed.

Faraday didn’t answer, didn’t try to make it better with meaningless platitudes.

“Smoke?” he asked instead, his hands lightly running up and down Vasquez’ back.

Vasquez just shook his head and dipped his mouth to the hollow of Josh’s throat, pressing his lips to the soft skin and the light flutter of a pulse.

“No. I’m fine,” he murmured.

Faraday’s knees fell open without hesitation, a soft exhale, a slow stretch of the pale column of his neck all the invitation Vasquez would get.

“Alright.” No hesitation there either.

Maybe Vasquez would let Faraday fuck him. Likely would. But first, he needed to tell him something. How much it meant to him that Faraday reacted so beautifully to soft touches. How much he adored how generous Faraday was with his body. Even though it was the only thing that had always solely been his to command.

There were no words for this or for the way Faraday insisted on preparing Vasquez' joints - extra light on the herbs - tolerating the medicating habit he had picked up from Goody without comment or judgment although he refused any kinds of drugs for himself.

 _Too much experience,_ he had said once and stashed a last cigarette into the locked box that sat on Vasquez bedside table, filling it up before he left for a stint at some semi-legal poker tournament in Vegas.

They had bedside tables now.

They had a whole lot neither of them would have dreamed of a year ago.

Vasquez softly dug his teeth into Faraday’s skin and sucked it deeper, rolling it between his lips until a low gasp of borderline pain told him he had marked him. Faraday’s hips shifted against the perfectly starched, soft, clean smelling linen of sheets that cost more than a family meal in a middle-class household.

Vasquez smiled.

Being fucked by this man was absolutely on the table, being covered by this solid body as those hands held him in place and his slow drawl of a voice whispered filth into his ear.

Faraday looked up, heavy-lidded eyes shining, as Vasquez pulled back to admire the dark bruise he had left. It said ‘mine’ with a sincerity that would have Goodnight comment on them again at the breakfast table.

Faraday's lips curled into a slow, lazy grin, a perfect mirror to Vasquez' thoughts. 

Oh yes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a few things lined up that I need to write... I didn't plan it but I think the next one might be another bedside story.  
> Someone wanted to hear about Goodnight and Billy... and since this someone holds a special, special place in my heart as far as OBA is concerned...
> 
> (Unless of course, the boys or Emma have different plans and decide that nope... something else needs to be written first)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna dedicate this to Decoy_Ocelot and Hazel_Athena who both had this at the absolute top of their wishlist.  
> A+ Dream Dad-ing

„Do me a favor and wear pants.“

Faraday whipped around from where he was staring into the half sorted chaos that was his half of their wardrobe and gaped. He gaped some more when he found Vasquez pulling honest to god posh linen pyjama pants up his narrow hips, stuffing any dangly bits out of the way before he tied them way too low to be decent in the presence of a living, warm-blooded man. 

“You’re joking, right?”

He was of course not. He wasn’t even subtle, but they had been sleeping naked since their first night, resorting to underwear only in hotel rooms and safe houses with the potential of people trying to kill them, and it just felt…wrong. On so many levels. 

“Please, guero. You can have some of mine if you don’t have any.” 

Looking down his own naked body Faraday sighed deeply and started digging through the piles for the single piece of night clothes he owned. 

“It’s ok, V.” He made a face and dragged the gray pants with the poker deck imprint out from under a stack of shirts.

Dragging them up his body felt all kinds of weird but hell if Vasquez’ stupidly grateful smile didn’t make it worth it.  “First night with the family and all that. I get it.”

The chances that any of them, or Red, managed to accidentally walk up the narrow staircase to their bachelor’s pad over the garage were close to nil but it was not worth the risk that Vasquez kept piling onto the sleep deprivation of the last weeks.

 

***

 

A thing they had found out early in this thing they called relationship, was the fact that both Vasquez and Faraday loved to sleep with their guns nearby. Faraday normally stuffed his between the mattress and the headboard for easier access with his right hand whereas Vasquez taped his Glock under the bed frame or between bed and nightstand. 

By unspoken agreement whoever prepped a hotel room, a safehouse or any other accommodation took care of it the for both of them. By the same unspoken agreement, they had both moved their backup guns to one of the safes as soon as the security system had been installed. 

Faraday thought of this first thing when the bedroom door whispered open at… He cracked open an eye and found the digital clock on the wall. 

6am. Six-ass end-of-morning. 

Two easy thoughts followed on the heels of that first one: That was a hella unusual time for an attacker. And: Murderers wore shoes. 

Not the the soft shuffle of naked feet on carpet and the soft snick of a door closing again. 

He looked for Vasquez and found a pair of dark eyes staring him, fraught with raw emotion and a tension that had nothing to do with expected danger. 

When their little intruder didn’t move for another ten seconds, Vasquez raised an eyebrow and turned his head toward the door. “¿Pesadilla?” 

She hummed softly but didn’t move, not until Vasquez lifted his blanket for her. 

Alejandra padded to the foot of the bed, staring at both of them for a moment before she crawled up the space in the middle of the bed. A little ghost in unicorn pyjamas and a head full of unruly hair that had escaped from her braid, shuffling under the warmth of Vasquez’s blanket and the safe curve of his body and arm curling around her. They settled into each other both with a low sigh as if suddenly the world had righted itself and Faraday didn’t need to know Spanish to translate his partner’s sleepy grumble of “Vuelve a dormir, Aleja.” or her adolescent eye roll.

Nor did he need to examine the gentle stab of hurt too deeply that settled into his chest with the lead weight of a bullet. He wasn’t jealous of an 11-year-old, even if she had just inadvertently erected a barrier between him and the only person he’d allowed close in about fifteen years. 

Hell, Vasquez had no idea. He had dropped back to sleep the moment his daughter had stopped wiggling, knowing her safe the one perfect sleep aid in existence.

The thought alone was Harlequin-level stupid. And that decided it, valid comparison to a TSTL heroine proved too much for even Faraday to swallow.

“Let him sleep,” he whispered to the girl that watched him with critical eyes. 

“Eres su novio?” she whispered back, fishing for confirmation or a reason to not have to sleep. 

But hell, what does a man tell the daughter of his partner who just successfully cuddle blocked them (with said partner’s willing help). Well, if all else failed, he always had the truth.

“Yes, I am. And he needs sleep. Please.” 

Alejandra stared at him for five seconds solid before she nodded and closed her eyes, ending their not-really standoff on her own terms.

If Faraday were a betting man, he’d give her five minutes. Vasquez had carried her to bed at around eight the previous night, an exhausted little bundle that still refused to let go of him and yes, in hindsight the pyjama pants made a hell lot of sense. But that also meant she had ten hours of sleep on their four. 

He was, of course, a betting man and when he opened his eyes after three minutes he found himself in the scrutiny of an eleven year old's gaze. 

All of a sudden, he remembered that gaze, the intensity in those eyes when she had beseeched him to protect her father. The strength of her little arms as she had clung to him.

He remembered the moment when he understood that Vasquez had had someone he’d loved with the intensity needed to turn her into a ghost and the immediate understanding that he also must have lost her.

The elation and sheer relief when Emma had spoken of the little girl - his little girl - they protected and the pain of the truth. Of what he’d gone through for her but also the knowledge that this kid had had to live with the thought and imagination of what might’ve happened to her only parent. 

Faraday might not have known much about kids but yeah… in that area, he was an expert.

“So…,” he murmured, stopping to grapple for a subject. “you like video games?”

There also was the language barrier. She spoke adequate English, as much he knew, he had a passable grasp of understanding Spanish, failing mostly in the speaking department. Between that, they should make that work.

The way her lips curled into an elated smile promised a good start.

“Yes. You too?” 

“Absolutely.” Faraday shuffled a little closer to bridge the whispering distance, though Vasquez remind out like a light. He did that, once he was safe after a stressing situation and his insomniac tendencies. Had done the same in the hospital after his lung surgery, woken up, made sure Faraday sat by his bed in the ICU and then slept for almost 24 hours straight.

And then he had spent several days in the loving care of the doctors, going out of his mind with nothing to do. That had been when Faraday had brought over both their laptops and they had resorted to shooting people online.

“What are you playing?” If she was anything like her father - and Faraday had listened to Vasquez gushing enough to know that - she’d already have her credentials.

“Minecraft. Civ.” Alejandra made a long-suffering face. 

“I play Minecraft sometimes,” Faraday shot in, leaning another bit closer. “But mostly CS:GO or Overwatch.”

Immediately, Alejandra lit up like a very hopeful Christmas tree. 

“I wanna play Overwatch!” And she deflated just a quickly. “But I’m not allowed. Grandma says there are criminals online and I must play with an adult. She and Andrea don’t play. At all.” 

Her accent was as subtle as Vasquez’s though her vocabulary was a lot simpler. But that was a gamer girl speaking the language of Youtube gaming tutorials all over the world. 

“You play with papa? What hero you play?” 

“Me?” Faraday grinned and balled his pillow under his shoulder to get more comfortable for talking if not sleeping. “Junkrat mostly, with a little Soldier or D.Va on the side.” 

“Uh… really?” Her face twisted in distaste. “Junkrat?” 

“Yeah, why not? There’s nothing wrong with a bit of chaos.” And bombs and explosions while cackling like a madman. Best not to tell her her father’s opinion of his hero choices. “What would you play?”

At this, Alejandra’s frown smoothed into a more thoughtful one before she carefully shrugged, not to dislodge her father’s arm. “Ana. Or Reinhardt. They’re cute.” In the darkness, her teeth gleamed as she grinned. “I ship it.”

This time it was Faraday who made a face. “You’re too young to ship anybody, munchkin. Also, they’re like, old as fuck.” 

“So are you and papa and I _bet_ you ship Reaper76.” 

“Everybody ships that.” 

“One of them is dead!”

Faraday’s plan to refute her claim was cut short by a low mumble from Vasquez, a soft sigh of almost wakefulness before he buried deeper under the covers.

Alejandra stared at him, the same thought crossing her face. 

“He needs to sleep.” 

She nodded and carefully extricated herself from Vasquez’s embrace at the same time Faraday rolled out of the bed. 

There was no sleep to be had with her and though 4 hours definitely weren’t world class athlete levels of awake, they qualified as kinda sufficient.

He grabbed a worn “I heart London” hoody from the chair on his side of the bed, grabbed Vasquez’s plain gray one that lay properly folded on the other chair and shooed the disheveled girl out the door. 

She followed him into the office on the other side of the tiny hallway without complaint, shrugging into her father’s sweater like a kitten into an empty potato sack. 

There really wasn’t much up here. They had expanded the garage to allow for more cars and also more space above it, but when it came down to it, their domain consisted of a shoulder width tunnel that connected a bedroom, a bathroom with an oversized shower and a nerd cave with more electronic gadgets than a secret CIA meeting room, two desks, a drawing table and a vintage leather couch. And a gun safe.  

All state of the art. 

One of the upside to sleeping with Vasquez was the fact that the man had a hand for money and much more self-control than Faraday himself.

_ "I need to work in here, guero, I need to  _ like _ this room.” _

Which he did after he had let his expensive taste run wild. And so did Faraday. No jealousy there. He only just maybe had started to keep his gambling habit safely away from at least some of his funds. A matter of pride and principle. He could keep the fuck up with a stuffed up Mexican geek by balancing his accounts and shoveling half of the cash he made into a savings account. 

Not everyone needed a private line to some Swiss bank dude. He was content to know that he  _ could  _ should he want to. 

Alejandra cared for none of that. Which was fucking charming in itself. God dammit if Faraday didn’t love a person that could cut through all the responsible crap and concentrate on the important things in life.

Maybe not coffee, she was too young for coffee, but a place at his desk, already firing up the computer while he worked the coffee machine and tried to find some of the prepackaged hot chocolate he knew Vasquez had stashed around here.

 

***

 

Vasquez’s nightmares tended to all start the same. 

“Rafa! Ali’s gone!”

The voice ripped him from sleep to utter wakefulness within half a second and had him roll to his feet in another. He scuffed his hand up between the bed and the nightstand, only to come up empty. His panic ratcheted higher before he remembered that he and Josh had removed every damn unsecured gun in the house. 

Joshua…

Vasquez’s eyes shifted to the bed and the empty spot where Faraday should be, then back to his sister. 

“It’s… It’s ok, I think,” mumbled and rubbed his eyes to clear at least some of the sleep remnants. “She was here and…”

Andrea cut him off, her mind jumping from the reassurance to the next horrible thing. “Is that a bullet wound?” 

Her eyes fixed onto his chest and the three scars that stacked on top of each other, one bullet and two surgical incisions. “I thought you said they shot only Carlos, Rafael!”

“They did.” Let’s please not talk about that. “This is … more recent.”

“More...recent?” Andrea had never tended towards mellow or gentle but the stress got to all of them. “What the fuck, Rafa? How recent?”

He shook his head and turned away to reach for his sweater - suspiciously absent sweater. Looking over his shoulder, he found the uppermost layer of Josh’s heap of “not exactly to wash” clothing missing as well. 

“Last year. Someone tried to get my money.” He smiled with far too many teeth. “They won’t be needing any more now.”

“Did you... “ Andrea marched after him when he trotted out into the hallway and a little to the left, towards the office. “Rafael! Did you kill them?” 

“No.” Vasquez reached for the doorknob but he already heard the laughter through the soundproofed walls. “I sold them out to their police.” Close enough.

“What even are you doing, Rafito? I don’t…”

This time, he was it that cut her off with a finger to his lips before he opened the door. 

 

“There’s a Reaper to your left, I hear him.” 

He found that someone had dragged his computer chair over to Josh’s desk as a seat for the 11-year-old curled on it, her naked feet stuffed under his hoody, an earbud in her left ear and what smelled like cocoa in her hands. And Josh, because of course Josh, was in the other chair, wearing sleeping pants and the other earbud, while he trotted over an Overwatch battlefield hunting a deadly mercenary. 

“Yeah, he’s behind somewhere. Reapers can’t hide from me, I know exactly what they sound like.” 

His eyes flicked to the upper left of the screen to check the kill feed before he blasted to an elevated position. 

“Does my papa play Reaper?” 

Vasquez snuck into the room, careful not to disturb them. Less to not break their banter and more to not break their concentration. Josh could get a little intense while playing and he didn’t take distraction well. 

“What do you think, munchkin?” A jumping mine sat at Faraday’s hero’s feet while the cooldown ticked towards zero. 

Ali facepalmed to his left, just as Josh stepped on the mine and detonated it, launching himself high into the sky to rain an unholy terror of grenades and another mine on the poor enemy player. 

Vasquez had seen him do that enough times to know exactly how that’ll end. 

“Can someone explain to me why that is a problem?” he asked and shoved a cup under the coffee machine, an apologetic glance to his sis who… looked like she actually didn’t expect anything else and would still blame it on him. And she smiled. 

“Reaper and Soldier? Really?” Ali rolled her eyes at him and after just the tiniest moment of hesitation reached her arms up.

She was no longer 6. Instead, he suddenly had a preteen with attitude at his hands, now awake and ready to arrive at whatever life he had dragged her into. And Josh. Who sat there, game mostly forgotten and smiled up at him, vaguely insecure yet proud. 

“Yes, really,” Vasquez grouched at her and bent down for a hug from her and a kiss from his boyfriend. “There is nothing wrong with that.” 

“It’s cliché, Rafa,” Andrea, the peanut gallery, commented taking a sip from his cup of freshly brewed French coffee. “Even I know that. And my game knowledge comes from Ali.”

“Josh says I can play with him when I need an adult. That means abuela will let me play. Can I get an account, papa? Pleeeeeeeaaaaase! I promise I have really good aim. I practiced.”

Joshua had taken his kiss and turned away again, already busy driving the enemy team in direction of their tank with his grenades. No comment on the situation, just that facial impression of a shrug that he sometimes did that could mean “I’m innocent.”, “Deal with it.” or “There you have it.” 

Ali looked up from her seat, a tiny girl in a huge sweater batting big eyes at him as if he was her only savior. “I can be your healer, papa.”

“Let me talk to your grandma. It’ll help noone if she shoots me for this. Finish the game and then go get breakfast. Both of you.”

“Do we have to?” Ali turned to Josh and to Vasquez’s surprised he nodded immediately.

“I try and get your grandmother to like me, Munchkin. Let’s try and not fuck it up, ok?”

Andrea in the background snorted a laugh. “Which is why Ali did not just hear you say this and will not repeat it to her. Ever.” 

“No bad words.” Ali shrugged and climbed out of the seat, leaving Josh behind to stare at Vasquez with the dawning horror of a man who just understood something vital. 

“Don’t look at me like this, guero,” Vasquez deflected the pleading in his eyes. “You said you wanted to do this when I tried to give you an out. Deal with it.”

On the screen, the grenade shooting explosion-loving idiot died a to an enemy sniper, but Josh was too busy to notice. Or he plain didn’t care, eyes fixed on Vasquez’s face as his lips slowly pulled into a secret little smile and he gently poked his boyfriend’s belly. “I’m still here, ain’t I, V.?”   
“Yes.” Vasquez lifted his hand and brushed some crude approximation of order into his partner’s bedhead. “Estas loco, guero. Totalmente loco.” 

Faraday’s smile acquired just a bit of an edge. “Sí.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course, Faraday is a Junkrat main.


	4. Freedom's just another word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's for Mist Marauder who screamed at me (loudly) about Goodnight and my evilness..  
> She wanted to see how Goody fared after the job. Here we go :)
> 
> I wrote this on a train between Buremberg and Leipzig, so if you find any typos - > comments please ;)

The moist louisiana heat blanketed the sweet afternoon air with the muted sounds of cicadas and small animals and a fine sheen of sweat muting down the 24th repeat of the song that wafted over from the porch.

Looking over, Billy found his man bent over his laptop in the exact same pose he had been fifteen minutes earlier, except now he didn’t wear shoes.

With a laugh, Billy wiped the sweat off his face and slowly made his way over. The hem of his training pants whispered over the richness soft grass of the lawn, reminding him that someone needed to get out the lawn mower. Which would not be Goody. For all his capability and talents, simple work was not one of them.

Billy let his gaze wander around their little safe haven, right row of bushes that shielded the property like a walled garden needed cutting, too. SO much so, that they might need to ponder letting that landscaper in that Goody’s family preferred. He did solid work and there was nothing wrong with the man per se, discreet, politely social. He even accepted the fact that the inhabitants of the remote property did not want any fancy flowers marring their lawn, just a few bushes and a few old trees that shaded the stately house in the unbearable summer heat, but he still was a stranger.

After a complete turn, Billy’s gaze arrived once more on the house and the man sitting on the porch in heavy linen pants and a dress shirt rolled up to his elbows; his gaze rested on Billy and a smile lurked in the corners of his mouth as if he knew exactly was his partner was thinking. Goodnight looked, in all honesty, like he was born to live in this house and for the umpteenth time, Billy found a certain kind of amusement in the thought of what the Robicheaux who had it built by enslaved hands would think of the fact that his descendant had sex with an Asian in there.

Goodnight pushed the laptop back and leaned back, the smile on his face growing into a gentle monstrosity that grabbed the former assassins heart and enslaved it anew each day.

“We need to have the lawn mowed.”

“Yes.”

Billy reached out and smoothed his finger through his lover’s soft hair and stole the smile.

“I’ll tell Aunt Estelle. She invited us to dinner anyways, so that’ll line up nicely."

Billy made a face. He liked Estelle. Best out of Goodnight’s extended family even. She just was…

Not that he had a choice, Estelle was one of the small prices he had to pay for this life. For the peace, for seeing skin below the blood upon waking some mornings.

“Any news on Faraday and Vasquez?”

“Sam’s keeping them busy. Friend Vasquez insists on personally vetting each officer that comes into contact with the information, both with the FBI and the CIA. The latter of which greatly unnerves Emma’s bosses.”

“You good with planning the job alone?”

Sam had given Vasquez about a week to regain his equillibrium after Emma had torn his precarious sense of peace apart, before he had asked him to come to Washington - and to his credit, he had _asked_ \- to hand over the information he had kept for five years and all the little things he had gathered in the years since. Emma very near had kissed him when he told her what his information gathering habit had unearthed, or she might have, judging from Faraday’s face.

Knowing Sam, though, Billy had already expected that to not be the only reason he wanted Vasquez in Washington. It wasn’t that Sam Chisolm tried to manipulate his friends he just seemed incapable of not testing them. Not just Vasquez, but Goody, too.

Who now smiled up at Billy and insistently tugged him down for another kiss.

“More than fine, mon cher.” He sounded fine, confident in what he did. “George says, I am fine, as stable as they... well, I, come for now.”

“George is a psychologist, Goody.”

“And you don’t trust psychologists?”

Billy made a face. Sam, of course Sam, had asked Goodnight to build a testing scenario to check Vasquez’ response to certain triggers. It was a requirement and Sam insisted on treating Vasquez not like a wild card operative but a law enforcement officer, officially employed with the FBI or not. Where others might have balked at the idea, Vasquez reveled in the familiar annoyance to the point where Billy might say he was looking foward to it.

Goody’s smile tipped as he raised and breathed the shadow of an apologetic kiss onto Billy’s knuckles. “You don’t trust Sam.”

“I trust Sam, but Goodnight, you _shot_ me! You didn’t sleep for two days after!”

“And then I got better!" Goodnight snapped.  " _I_ decided to shoot you to protect you and then I decided to deal with it, Billy, because I finally made a decision. For the first time in years I had enough guts to actually _make_ a decision! Because I love you and you needed me to. And then I made another decision: to get better. And I did!”

Billy shook his head at Goodnight’s words, not to negate them, he couldn’t do that, ever. “You don’t have to…”

“I want to, Billy. I need to. I hate this soft-bellied coward. I hate what the war made me. A whimpering damsel with a hard polished front that crumbles whenever somebody looked too hard. You deserve better.” He took a deep breath. “I do.”

Billy deflated in the face of the irrefutability of that argument. His fingers carded slowly through his lover’s hair, pondering with each deliberate stroke how he could ever convey they truth about the beauty of Goodnight Robicheaux’s poet soul.

From the laptop’s tinny speakers Janice Joplin started to sing again, the 28th time.

There were no words for the sudden bright flame of ‘maybe’ that Goodnight had lit as he had fucked Billy on the hood of his government issued Sedan sometime during dawn in the Arizona desert while a rough edged woman had lamented Bobby McGee. Or for all the times when he had insisted on keeping his word, of lying and stealing for Billy’s chance at a life and the promise of freedom he had had so callously signed away as a headstrong youth. For the hope.

Goodnight might have survived for years by fronting like a conman, a smile and a “bless your heart.” but he had dragged Billy along and landed him here, at this house and this life where his biggest problem was the fact that aunt Estelle was 72 years of second spring and Louisiana flair and their lawn needed mowing.

_“But I’d trade all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday…”_

“How hard do you wanna go on Vasquez?”

“Not hard enough that Faraday will try to kill me, if I’m honest.”

Billy snorted and pressed a kiss into Goody’s hair before he dragged the second chair out from under the porch table - in need of a painting - and next to Goody.

“I’ll protect you from that drunken Irish upstart.”

At Goody’s sharp laugh, Billy’s lips twitched and he gently hooked his foot around Goody’s leg. “Who will go under to run it against him?” he asked, studying Goody’s notes with half an eye on the screen.

“Well, I was hoping for you, dear. Alongside Sam and probably Faraday.”

“Any alternatives?”

Goodnight shrugged and failed utterly at his attempt at innocence. “Well, there is me…”

“No,” Billy cut him off, ignoring the knowing smile on his partner’s face. “Show me.”

Goodnight’s laugh surprised both of them, full of delight at the immediate success of his small play, full of barely banked glee that seemed to belong to a man much less muted than the one Goodnight Robicheaux had been made by life.

A grin split Billy’s face as he leaned in, just quite not touching their lips together. “And then, _cher_ , let me show you what you get for manipulating me.”

Their breath ghosted over both their lips. Goody’s mouth tilted up in one of his trademark wry grins and he winked, a come on, a dare, a ‘grab the devil by the horns and ride him across the river’. “You shouldn’t be so indulgent of me, Billy. I am known to have neither shame nor restraint.”

Billy shot forward and caught his mouth in a sharp nip. “Good. Now show me the work.”

Goody subtly adjusted his seating while Janice sang about Bobby and Billy thought that true freedom meant knowing where you belonged.

Goody’s chair squeaked.

He’d have to oil that.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is something I found in my files as I was sorting them today that didn't make the final cut of Chapter 10 but it belongs right after the dream.  
> I kinda like it to get a feel for Emma's headspace and it's actually better than I thought it was. So... here it is.

Emma wondered, sometimes, if she would face real death with the same calm expectancy as she accepted waking up from a gunshot wound to the head. After waking so many times from being shot, stabbed, crushed, death somehow had lost much of the terror of the unknown.

Except when she woke to mayhem and agonized screams.

"HORNE! DO SOMETHING!" Vasquez's voice echoed with the natural authority of someone who expected his orders to be followed even though the rolled up sleeve of his white shirt was drenched in blood that seeped freely from the inner bend of his elbow. His needle lay discarded on the  PASIV, discarded without thought where he had torn it from his arm to help his... Faraday. The man he had followed for weeks with almost shy eyes whenever the other hadn’t looked and raucous laughter when he had.

Now he sat curled around Faraday’s prone form, arms locked tightly around his body to keep him still while Dr. Horne frantically fought to attach a drip to the injection still lodged in their Forger’s arm. 

“I’m gonna have to sedate him,” Horne stated, pleasantly calm and in full control of the situation as if Faraday didn’t feel...whatever it was he felt so acutely from the numerous wound he had gotten himself. 

“I don’t care, doctor.” Vasquez panted as Faraday slammed his freed arm into Vasquez's biceps where a bullet had torn flesh in the dream. “Keep him from making it worse!” 

 

In the shadow of their ruckus, the others moved with efficient grace. Goodnight had switched the easy embrace of his partner for serious conversation with Sam Chisolm, just outside the door of the van. Red Harvest watched them and their surrounding as Chisolm’s silent shadow, no doubt listening to every word. They just parted with an amiable pat on each other's arm and an eerie sense of serenity on Goodnight’s face that didn’t belong to the expressive man any more than the screams belonged to their joker. 

Only Teddy sat as subdued as she, outside the center of action, keeping watch with the reliability of a rock over the sleeping form of Bartholomew Bogue. It took Emma a moment to understand that she was still connected to him via the lifeline of the cannula in her arm, that a part of her still tethered in the dreams of the man who had Matthew, Irina, and Thomas tortured beyond recognition and then dumped them like waste.

She searched for the triumph that should be there, the knowledge that she had bested him, that her team had taken him out and apart, marked him inevitably. Justice like Justice couldn’t serve it with her eyes open.

Instead, he looked horrifyingly peaceful in his dreams, despite the broken nose and the negligible speck of blood on his face, like nothing, no horror, no destruction they could wreak on his mind could ever touch him. As if his simple, continued defiance wanted to mock every night she woke crying and unable to flee the reality he had inflicted. 

Matthew was dead. And nothing could change it, nothing could alleviate the finality of that truth. 

The weight of the gun at her hip understood, just an idea- You can’t bring him back. You haven’t been granted that power. 

Teddy remained transfixed by Faraday’s pain and Emma hoped he’d stay that way as her heart settled on the knowledge that she could still take. Bogue was a cancer on this world, a poison that seeped into everything he touched. And like a cancer, he should be cut out before he could harm anybody else. 

Her fingers brushed over the cool metal of the Glock. A shadow moved into her field of vision. Black slacks, white shirt, a dash of red and Vasquez crouched in front of her, pale beneath his healthy tan, his hand covering hers with utmost gentleness as he shook his head. 

Behind him, Billy had taken his place and Goodnight built a living barrier with his body. Faraday’s screams had abated. 

“You can only kill him once, Miss Emma,” Vasquez whispered. “Death is no punishment. You want to see him break?” He sighed and looked over his shoulder, only to be met with Goodnight’s patient stare. 

“Then we go now and take his secrets.”

His hand was warm in hers when he pulled her to her feet, his body a solid wall to shield her, like Goodnight shielded him, from the reality of Bogue.

He took a pad of gauze from Goodnight and helped her remove the needle in her arm, When he turned away, Goodnight’s hand caught him at the last moment, pushing another pad into his hand. 

Vasquez hesitated, confused, until Goody shook his head in mock annoyance. “Don’t forget yourself, son. We will take care of your boy but I don’t think he’ll appreciate you neglecting yourself over his predicament.”

Their eyes met over Vasquez disbelieving “...his predicament…” Goody shifting half a step to the side when Vasquez tried to catch a last glance. 

Emma could look past Goodnight’s back and caught Billy’s exaggerated eye-roll at his partner’s words.

It felt… different now. She had seen them die. Goodnight, Billy, Faraday. Worse, she had watched Vasquez. 

Once it had been characters they played on a stage of their own making, now…

Vasquez turned with a soft huff, shooing her out of the overcrowded van, past Red Harvest’s knowing eyes and his respectful nod. 

“Good hunting,” he said, tossing a spent bullet casing from hand to hand. 

  
  
  



End file.
